een, "From whom did you hear them?"

"He was staying at East Lynne. The man had been abroad; outlawed;
dared not show his face in England; and Mr. Carlyle, in his generosity,
invited him to East Lynne as a place of shelter, where he would be safe
from his creditors while something was arranged. He was a connection in
some way of Lady Isabel's, and they repaid Mr. Carlyle, he and she, by
quitting East Lynne together."

"Why did Mr. Carlyle give that invitation?" The words were uttered in a
spirit of remorseful wailing. Mrs. Carlyle believed they were a question
put, and she rose up haughtily against it.

"Why did he give the invitation? Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine? Did
Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate? And, if he had known it, was not
Isabel his wife? Could he dream of danger for her? If it pleased Mr.
Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that be
to me--to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to my
husband? What were you thinking of, madame?"

"Thinking of?" She leaned her troubled head upon her hand. Mrs. Carlyle
resumed,--

"Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters over,
it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality. That man, I
say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr. Carlyle's
family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe, who brought
a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine. Did you know--" Mrs.
Carlyle lowered her voice--"that I have a brother in evil--in shame?"

Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it. Who had there
been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of Richard
Hare!

"So the world calls it--shame," pursued Barbara, growing excited.
"And it is shame, but not as the world thinks it. The shame lies with
another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that
other is Francis Levison. I will tell you the tale. It is worth the
telling."

She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what Francis
Levison had to do with Richard Hare.

"In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child, Richard
took to going after Afy Hallijohn. You have seen the cottage in the
wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce. It was very foolish
for him; but young men will be foolish. As many more went after her, or
wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten fingers. Among
them, chief of them, more favored even